Close to School Supervision in Tanzania: Collective Views on Teachers’ Job Performance

This paper examined the effectiveness of close to school supervision in enhancing teachers’ job performance in Tanzanian public secondary schools. The study was guided by Path-Goal theory. This study adopted the qualitative approach using case study design and data were obtained from 32 informants. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion were the main data collection methods, and the data were thematically analysed. It was found that that the close to school education officers employed directive supervision in supervising schools. The strategy improved teachers’ work performance. It was also found that close to school supervision included supportive supervision and participative supervision strategies but had limited contribution in teachers’ work performance. It is concluded that directive supervision practices highly contributed to teachers’ job performance in secondary schools in Tanzania. It is recommended that for teachers to improve job performance, close to school supervisors should practice supportive and participative supervision strategies accordingly.


INTRODUCTION
Teachers' professional activities are globally supervised (Khan & Abdullah, 2019). The goal of supervising teachers is mainly ensuring quality of teaching well executed and students learn accordingly (Tadele & Bekele, 2017). It yields the quality of work that teachers perform, and that is job performance (Wolomasi, Asaloei, & Werang, 2019;Zikanga et al., 2021). Job performance that teachers are measured in supervision are not limited to preparing teaching and lesson materials, managing students in teaching and learning processes, mastering teaching methods and subject matters (Emengini, Omenyi, & Nwankwo, 2020;Johari, Yean Tan, & Tjik Zulkarnain, 2018;Mandefro, 2020;Uwe & Godwin, 2019;Virgana, 2021). United Nations Educational Science and Cultural Organisation) [UNESCO] (2016), and International Institute for Capacity Buliding in Africa [IICBA] (2017) stipulate that, however, education systems require supervision, elementary education such as lower secondary education need it the most. This was our focus whereby we examined the effectiveness of close to school supervision in enhancing teachers' job performance in public secondary schools in Tanzania.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Close-to-school supervision (CSS) is the second level of supervision after that of school-based supervision under the heads of school (UNESCO and IIEP, 2011;UNESCO, 2015a). In view point of Laranang (2022) school-based supervision is the first level of education supervision of which school principals are responsible for. The practice is the same in all public secondary schools in Tanzania (United Republic of Tanzania, 2017). In regard to second level of supervision, is exercised by Ward Educational Officers (WEOs) (United Republic of Tanzania, 2014). The WEOs, qualified by UNESCO as "close to school supervisors, " are responsible for regularly visiting schools, providing professional support to teachers, and identiflying teaching and learning resources for school imporivement (UNESCO & IICBA, 2016). Pepugal (2022) adds that It is intended to provide secondary schools with the tools they need to empower their key officials to make knowledgeable local decisions based on their particular needs in order to improve the education system"( p. 26). In Tanzania, the rationale of giving supervisory power to WEOs is grounded on the facts that WEOs have more information about the school sitution such as characteristics of school heads, teachers, students, and educational resources and therfore, provide the required support (Cilliers & Oza, 2020). In order to ensure WEOs support schools, the government of Tanzania in partnership trained WEOs on leadership and provided with all supervisory facilities and materials (United Republic of Tanzania, 2017). Cilliers and Oza (2020) confirm that that government of Tanzania and donor agencies have improved WEOs by providing resources and training (Cilliers & Oza, 2020), although, there are some cases that show are not well utilised in improving the quality of school supervision (Cilliers, Dunford, & Habyarimana, 2021). It was argued that despite the facts that WEOs were empowered to supervise teachers, teachers views on WEOs' supervision contribution on teacher job performanced lacked a scholarly results. The practical effects of close to school supervision on teacher job performance is associated with supervisory strategies (Ahmad & Saefurrohman, 2020;Alshehri, 2019;Nasution & Ahmad, 2017;Tahir & Iraqi, 2018;Zikanga et al., 2021). Das (2020) outlines three major types of school supervision strategies: corrective supervision is used to direct teachers on what do and how to do it in line with rules and regulations; collaborative supervision is used to solve teaching and learning problems by the means of collaboration between supervisors and teachers; and supportive supervision is used to motivate teachers with the end of improving teaching and learning practices. In Saud Arabia, Alshehri (2019), for example, argues that school supervisors have autonomy to use directive, collaborative, and non-directive supervision in supervising teachers. In the context of Indonesia, Nasution and Ahmad (2017) state that directive supervision and nondirective strategies are recommended for supervising teachers, and in Nigeria, teachers are supervised through supportive supervision, evaluative supervision, and collaborative supervision approaches (Kotirde &Yunos, 2015). However, the real supervisory strategies practiced by close to school educational institutions in Tanzania are unclear. Close to school supervision institutions in Tanzania have been reported to have unqualified human resources and limited resources to facilitate supervision activities (Arthur & Lekule, 2020;Mtondo, 2016;Thomas, 2015). Therefore, the paper examined the effectiveness of close to school supervision in enhancing teachers' job performance in Tanzanian public secondary schools. The study addressed one question: Supervision strategies that ward education officers use in public secondary schools contribute for teachers' job performance?

METHODOLOGY
The qualitative research approach and case study research design collected data from 4 were WEOs, 4 heads of school and 24 teachers. These informants were obtained by the means of purposive sampling methods. Narrative data collection included one to one interview sessions with school heads and WEO and FGDs, although, the time frame for interview sessions differed significantly. It was agreed that one to one interview session had to be spent for 60 minutes and group interview sessions 90 minutes because and time frame is mutually upon agreements between investigators and informants (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill (2009). The content of data collection included three components of path goal theory (House, 1996) such as directive supervision, supportive supervision and participative supervision and excluded achievement supervision. Data were thematically analysed through the guidance of Creswell and Creswell's (2018) five stages of qualitative data analyis.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results on close to school supervision in public secondary schools show that WEOs used directive supervision strategy and effectively improved teachers' job performance. Teachers were supervised to follow rules and regulations and practicing professional moral conducts. Teachers improved all related professional activities such as teaching students. Some of the informants discussed that: I wish to see each and every teacher undertakes daily duties as stipulated in the teacher's standing orders. In short, they are supervised to adhere to them. I have seen them showing responsibility to the government, community, and students. If I put my supervision

command and teachers' responses together, I am convinced that teachers have improved in their teaching (Interview with the WEO of ward ' A'; on 4th May 2021). Another informant added that:
Our teachers receive equal treatment of supervision from WEO. They are supervised on documenting and in observing protocols when communicating with the employer. WEO also ask teachers to treat students fairly in the process of teaching and learning. This supervision is an important thing and has shown good results to my staff (Interview with the School head 1 of school 1 in ward ' A'; on 5th May 2021). The study found that WEOs practising directive supervision properly. WEOs' directive supervision practices enabled teachers to increase teaching and learning job performance. These study findings concur with Nasution and Ahmad (2017) who found that, in Indonesia, there was 50 per cent of the teachers who supported that directive supervision make high teachers' job performance. However, directive supervision has been claimed to decrease teachers' job performance in Uganda (Okia et al, 2018). These findings reflect those of UNESCO and IICBA (2016) that, Gambian heads of school and teachers improved their job performance as the result of directive supervision under cluster supervisors. The results also indicate that WEOs did not use participative supervision strategy in supervising teachers and thereby had limited contribution in teaching and learning job performance. On one hand, WEOs believed that heads of school were in a good position to carry out participative supervision, and on the other hand, school heads and teachers claimed that WEOs had low motive to practices participant supervision which was important to regulate shortage of books and big class size that teachers were facing in the studied schools. Teachers in one of the FGDs were quoted saying that: Actually, we need the WEO to oversee our teaching preparations! This is because there are challenges. That the WEO is not active participant in our teaching team, it is not true that each and everything works as planned…. how could we say that our teaching is going on well? (FGD 1 at school 1 in ward ' A'; on 5th May 2021). It is argued that if the WEOs' participative supervision could have been implemented, it could have shaped teachers by making them perform well in their professional duties. These results are in line with those of Mtondo (2016) and Arthur and Lekule (2020) who found that WEOs in Tanzania specifically in Kigoma and Tabora regions, they were hardly supervising teachers the result of which made the quality education to be less improved. These findings align with, Arthur and Lekule (2020) who highlight that WEOs were paying less attention in supervising teachers than their participating in ceremonial functions. In contrast, in the context of Saud Arabia, Alshehri (2019) found that most of the supervisors were successively practising participative supervision in schools and the practice made teachers' teaching and learning job performance go up.
Am. J. Arts Hum. Sci. 1(3) 10-13, 2022 The study analysis revealed that WEOs claimed to have been working with supportive supervision. The practices were supported by only one school heads and majority school heads and all teachers opposed the practices. In case of informants whose thoughts were positive to the practices, WEOs were collecting data on the challenges that schools were facing and they were giving the required support. One of the WEOs was quoted as saying: I use supportive supervision. My supervision time is spent on encouraging teachers to work. I also assist heads of schools to buy enough materials. All these have worked and I want to tell you that teachers are eager to work and teaching performance is good (Interview with the WEO of ward 'C'; on 18th May 2021). Majority of school heads and teachers expressed their thoughts that WEOs collecting schools' challenges lacked solutions. As a result, supportive supervision was criticized in line with offering solutions to teachers' teaching challenges. Some teachers in the FGDs discussed that: Nowadays, teaching has been faced by many obstacles. Assumingly, the WEO is likely to think that the head does each and everything. However, it should be noted that technicality, supportive supervision is absent and our teaching is not influenced by it (FGD 2 at school 2 in ward 'B'; on 11th May 2021). The study found that WEOs used supportive supervision strategy through the collection of challenges that schools and teachers faced with limited solutions. Teachers understood that the WEOs were using supportive supervision when supervising the heads of school. The teachers' claims suggest that the WEOs had delegated the supportive supervision to heads of schools. However, due to that, teachers' teaching and learning failed to advance. The WEOs claimed that, through supportive supervision, some unresolved challenges were submitted to the high authorities. Based on these findings, it can be said that the WEOs were supporting teachers morally and materially as House (1996) describes that, supportive supervision deals with responding to subordinates' needs and giving them courage of performing their work. These study findings concur with Yousaf, Usman and Islam (2018) who found that in Pakistan, supportive supervision under school principal made a significant contribution in improving teaching and learning job performance of teachers. Similarly, in Uganda, supportive supervision has shown positive outcomes in teachers' job performance in syllabus coverage, lesson plan preparation, regular attendance, pupils' assessments, and time management (Okia et al., 2018).

CONCLUSIONS
The study examined the effectiveness of close to school supervision in enhancing teachers' job performance in Tanzanian public secondary schools. It concludes that WEOs use of directive supervision strategy was effective to teachers' job performance unlike participative and supportive strategies. This implies that WEOs were practising directive supervision accordingly, enabling teachers to improve job performance. Teachers' job performance could be observed in time management and the practices of public servants' laws and regulations. It is clearly the close to school supervision is relevant to Tanzanian education and training policy of 2014 which recognises WEOs as close to school supervisors. We recommend that WEOs should improve the use of participative supervision and supportive supervision strategies with end of helping teachers improve other professional aspects such as pedagogical practices.